Movie Review: ‘Transcendence’

Let’s face it, at some point, we will all live inside the internet. We want to pilot our own Flappy Bird, we want to be able to throat-punch certain people on Facebook, and I’m not even gonna touch upon the revolutions this would represent for the internet porn industry.

In Transcendence, Johnny Depp plays a scientist who uploads his consciousness into a computer. No, he’s not playing Arnim Zola…although it is funny that The Winter Soldier JUST beat Transcendence to the punch. Given the fact that Transcendence is the directorial debut of cinematographer Wally Pfister (longtime Christopher Nolan collaborator), anticipation was running high. Would the film be able to handle the anticipation bandwidth or would it crash, forcing us to reboot our expectations?

The Unusual Suspects are here to help! Just consider Brian, J.C., and Ashley your filmic IT department, and we won’t even make you turn the review off and on again. Listen as the crew breaks down all the bits and bytes, arriving at a final system report.

If nothing else, now we know why Johnny Depp wears all those funny hats in his movies: because he’s got plugs! Acid. Burn.

Brian is a four-year veteran of the interwebs, a member of The Austin Film Critics Association, and currently writes for Film School Rejects, Movie Pilot, Movies.com, and Fandango. An obsessive consumer of film, Brian loves everything from Buster Keaton to 80s post-apocalyptic sci-fi. He’s also a diehard Indianapolis Colts fan and collects VHS, laser discs, and classic game systems. An eighth-level geek overlord, Brian is one of the founders of OneOfUs.net, the brainchild of he and partner in crime Christopher Lawrence Cox. Brian cohosts both the Inside the Locker and Digital Noise podcasts.